The new guilt

One thing that many people don’t understand is the psychological challenges that a first generation college students go through. Being in my second year of college at San Jose State University, I am still transitioning from my time lived with my parents to being independent. One common trend for many first generation college students and in my case coming from a ethnic minority group is the guilt. For years my family has had some sort system about the adult transition. My parents immigrated from Mexico in the early 1980s where they were in their young 20s they had a different approach to life opposed to mine. Since the moment my parents stepped foot in the U.S. all they knew was work and the best way to achieve life’s happiness is to work hard. My three older brothers mediocrely went through High School and soon after joined the work force or enlist in the military. I was the first in my family to take school seriously and to take the advantages it can give someone. When I decided to go away to school and leave home I was looked at as a stranger and some sort of traitor for disrupting their “system”. They didn’t know that I saw going to school as a way to broaden my mind and search for what I love to do. The new guilt was covered in feeling distant from my family to our differences in seeing things and being physically away from them.